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Like the cost-conscious young women they seek to outfit, the
owners of online clothing boutique Shopatrend have plenty of style but
little money to spend, especially on business functions such
as marketing. So sisters Jennifer, Elizabeth and Victoria
Acosta, who started Shopatrend in September 2011, are
leveraging their keen visual sense to market their company
at little cost through social photo service Instagram.

"It is an extremely powerful marketing tool," Jennifer Acosta
says. "What makes Instagram so valuable is that it provides
immediate feedback about what people like and what they don't."

Los Angeles-based Shopatrend has more than 20,000 followers on
Instagram, with about 1,000 new followers
signing on to see the company's snaps each week. Subscribers
view a steady stream of images on their smartphones or at
Followgram, a web-based Instagram photo viewer. "It creates a
unique relationship with our customers," Acosta says.

Photos showcase the hip and stylish lifestyle that customers
either have or aspire to have. Images go far beyond clothing, to
people, animals and interesting objects or designs. For example,
one Instagram photo that captured 867 "likes" depicts nail art
featuring typeset words.

"People wind up with a pretty good idea of who we are, what we
think about and how we feel," Acosta notes. The images and the
overall sense of personality, in turn, help define and frame the
brand. "We want to create an ooh and aah effect so they will keep
coming back and, along the way, buy things," she says.

Acosta typically posts several photos per week. "Instagram is
appealing because it's different than other social media sites.
It's an album filled with pictures. It's direct and straight to
the point," she explains. But beyond the visuals, she observes
how many people "like" the images and make comments; Shopatrend
then uses that information to prune less popular images and guide
decisions about what products to sell and what to display on the
website.

The instant feedback is invaluable. Once a photo becomes popular,
more people are likely to view it and "like" it. Over time,
Acosta says, the process of posting and refining
images--including which to remove and which ones to build
on--becomes "organic."

Shopatrend also has a presence on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Pinterest, and Acosta
often uses one social media site to encourage participation in
another. For example, she'll post a promotion on Twitter and
Facebook promising a 10 percent discount code to anyone who
clicks "follow" on Instagram.

Though she won't release revenue figures, Acosta says social
media has helped double Shopatrend's sales over the past several
months, and the company now boasts customers as far afield as
France and Australia. The online growth has inspired Acosta and
her sisters to start thinking about opening a brick-and-mortar
boutique.

"We like the idea of an organic relationship," she says. "The
business is built on close relationships. Nowadays, retailing has
lost much of its personality. We want to put some of the fun
[and] fantasy … back into fashion." --Samuel Greengard